President Abdullah Gul will on Saturday become the first Turkish head of state to visit Armenia, his office said, taking an important step to restart diplomatic relations between two neighboring countries.


Gul will go to Yerevan to attend a football match between the two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations



Armenia's President Serge Sarkisian invited Gul last month to attend the qualifying match for the 2010 World Cup finals to mark "a new symbolic start in the countries' relations". Turkish diplomats and security officials have been in Yerevan this week making final preparations.



"A visit around this match can create a new climate of friendship in the region," the Turkish presidency said in a statement posted on its website. "It is with this in mind that the president has accepted the invitation.




"This match could lift the obstacles blocking the coming together of two peoples who share a common history and can create a new foundation," it said.



The Turkish presidency said it hoped the visit means "an opportunity for a better mutual understanding."




Gul will arrive in Yerevan two hours before the match and go directly to the office of Sargsyan. The meeting of two presidents is expected to last for one hour.



Gul is expected to discuss the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute and Turkey's proposal for establishing a Caucasus alliance with Sargsyan. If they do, this would be the first time that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is on the agenda of a bilateral meeting.



Turkish delegation will leave Yerevan as soon as the match ends.



Turkey is among the first countries that recognized Armenia when it declared its independency. However there is no diplomatic relations between two countries, as Armenia presses the international community to admit the so-called "genocide" claims instead of accepting Turkey's call to investigate the allegations, and its invasion of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory despite U.N. Security Council resolutions on the issue.



ARMENIA WELCOMED

Sarkisian earlier welcomed a Turkish proposal for a new forum in the volatile Caucasus region after meeting a senior Turkish envoy to prepare the visit.




"Armenia has always welcomed and welcomes all efforts directed at the strengthening of confidence, stability and security, and at deepening cooperation in the region," Sarkisian said in a statement after meeting Gul's special envoy Unal Cevikoz.



He added that Guls special envoy Unal Cevikoz's visit "raises the possibility of talks to settle mutual relations" between the two countries.



A warming period had started between two neighboring countries when the two presidents exchanged letters after Sargsyan's election victory. Gul's visit raised hopes that the two major problems, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia's genocide claims, could be solved through dialogue.



In 2005, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a tentative first step towards resolving the thorny genocide issue by mooting that a joint commission of historians launch an investigation and publish their conclusions.



The proposal was rejected by Yerevan. Turkey hopes the establishment of such a commission would enlight the 1915 incidents.



Armenia, with the backing of the Diaspora, claims up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in 1915. Turkey rejects the claims, saying that 300,000 Armenians along with at least as many Turks died in civil strife that emerged when Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia.